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Small America and bin Laden’s Victory: Four Essays for the Weekend
Late last night, I came across four insightful essays, all in Tablet magazine. They’re painful to read, but they struck me as worthy of thought and discussion. Reading them all takes about a half hour.
The first is by Lee Smith, who attempts to define the difference between Obama’s and Netanyahu’s view of America. In my view there’s no reason to focus on Netanyahu; many of us find Obama’s view of America’s role in the world puzzling–and it’s not to our credit that the prime minister of Israel has become a better-known and more articulate exponent of the opposing case than any American leader. Smith’s understanding of Obama strikes me as more intuitively plausible than a view of Obama as deeply unpatriotic or actively hostile to America. For Smith, Obama is a Gladstone figure–a proponent of what Smith calls “Small America.”
Rudy Giuliani recently made headlines when he said that Obama doesn’t love America, a formulation that unsurprisingly won him much praise from the far right. It’s an absurd charge, of course—or rather, it’s wrong by omission. Obama loves America very much, but it’s the Small America he loves, not Big America. …
If you’re Netanyahu, your experience as an Israeli tells you that Big America is a very good thing—political and diplomatic support across the board and of course American arms and military aid that helps you protect your country from lunatics intent on slaughtering you. However, if you grew up during the Cold War in one of those distant new countries in Asia and Africa where America played one side and then the other, and where U.S. diplomacy and U.S. weapons were destined to be used by one part of the country or community against the other side, then you’d have to be a sociopath to love Big America.
What Obama loves is the promise that America extends to the world, regardless of color or creed—you’re welcome here, dream big, you can make it, our arms are open, we’ll help you. This is why the Affordable Care Act was so important to the president, to make good on that promise and provide the dreamers with a safety net. It’s also why the Iran deal is so important to Obama. He understands that it means the end of Big America—which, as he sees it, is an albatross around our necks, and hardly a blessing to the rest of the world.
This sounds to me an accurate diagnosis. I think it’s a useful and honest way for conservatives to think about Obama. To say that he hates America is to trivialize the real, underlying debate, which is fundamentally about what America is and should be: Should it be a global and imperial power? Or is the American empire is a failed or untenable project? The undercurrent of what little national debate we have about foreign policy is largely unvoiced, but it shouldn’t be: What we’re debating, ultimately, are the costs of keeping that empire–and the costs of abandoning it.
As for the costs, consider the next essay by Hanin Ghadar. He writes about the message of the pact with Iran to Arab liberals. No one will help you:
Democracy, freedom, self-determination, human and individual rights are values that Arab liberals like myself thought we shared with the United States. That’s what you told us. For years, we’ve received training and attended workshops on democracy and freedom of expression sponsored by international NGOs and NGOs funded by the United States and the Europeans. We’ve been preached to by visiting American diplomats and think-tankers and journalists about the virtues of citizenship and democracy. We took plenty of notes. We’ve been told that if we speak out to defend our rights, we will be supported by America. And now we’ve been betrayed.
For many liberal Arab citizens like me, it looks like the United States is now taking sides in a sectarian conflict and turning a deliberate blind eye to violations of rights and values which are supposedly the core of what the United States represents. The United States is siding with the Shiites against the Sunnis. It is helping Assad, Hezbollah, and other allies of Iran stay in power. The United States has picked the Resistance axis over helping potential democracies to grow. …
Abandoning Arab liberals and civil society to sectarian warfare seems to now be a valid compromise to make to Iran in return for the deal. Is this what the United States wants the region to become? A battleground for mad extremists? Is the nuclear deal worth that much blood? Are we that insignificant?
The next essay, by Paul Berman, is titled The Reign of Terror, Year XX: The state of jihad and counter-jihad, in the middle of a long war:
Back in 1996 the wider world had never heard of Bin Laden. But look at the jihad now—at the sundry Islamist insurgencies around the world, each of them marked by local peculiarities, and all of them emitting the same medieval fragrance of paranoia, millenarianism, and superstition. The jihad in Afghanistan: evidently undefeatable, regardless of NATO, the world’s most powerful military alliance. In various provinces of Pakistan: thriving, despite the CIA’s drones, the world’s most sophisticated weapon. In the Caucasus: clinging to life, regardless of Vladimir Putin, the world’s most powerful dictator. In Yemen: a stubborn base for al-Qaida, regardless of still more American drones. And thence to the Gaza Strip (where jihad presides), the Sinai Peninsula, Libya (where the jihad is contending for power), Mali and the Sahel, Somalia, and onward to amazing successes in northern Nigeria and beyond—a geographical sprawl indicating levels of energy astronomically beyond what anyone would have imagined 20 years ago. Or look in Shiite directions, where the news is dismaying from still another standpoint. …
Berman then describes the four phases of the counter-jihad–each, he says, a failure, and I cannot argue. I encourage you to read his whole essay before the final one, the most painful of all.
David Samuels writes what I suspect we all think deep down. Bin Laden won.
It is proof of Bin Laden’s mastery of the unexpected logic that animates strategic thought, and of the glaring inability of America’s political leaders to think strategically, that not one but two American presidents have faithfully acted their roles in his geo-political script: George W. Bush, the hawk, with his open-ended and heavy-handed occupation of Iraq; and Barack Obama, the dove, with his precipitous and wholesale withdrawal of American military forces and influence from the Middle East. Both men—and their many advisers—should have known better.
Even more worrying is that Bin Laden easily imagined that they wouldn’t know better—not because of what political party they belonged to, but because they were Americans. While it is generally a blessing to have political leaders who graduate from places like Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School, rather than from underground revolutionary organizations or the blood-drenched security structures of authoritarian states, it is also clear that foreign policy is not an area where clever sound-bites or even good intentions count for much. When it comes to strategic thinking, America might have been better off with leaders who lived in mud huts in Afghanistan and spent their spare time reading the Quran: By applying the linear logic of peacetime to a war-time situation that demanded the dialectical approach that animates strategic thought, Messrs. Bush and Obama each did their part to create a disaster whose consequences for both America and the Arab world will continue to unfold in horrifying ways for decades to come.
It’s not cheerful reading, but I think you’ll find it thought-provoking.
I wish I looked forward to a presidential election in which the candidates openly debated these issues and the questions to which they give rise. Unfortunately, I don’t. It would be much healthier if we did–of what use is self-determination if we don’t?–but we allow our politicians to avoid discussing these questions. Probably, I suspect, because we don’t like thinking about them.
Published in General
It’s mine, too.
Having made my somewhat apocalyptic comments previously, I’ll now put in some more optimistic notes. Despite these trends, the anti-Left, that grouping of quarrelsome, inconsistent and often frustrating opponents of Progressivism, has done well in recent elections controlling the US Congress and state governorships and legislatures (and in the US House and at the state level with more control than in 80 years) so there is clearly a lot of resistance out there.
Furthermore, while there is a potent ideological Left out there (media, academia etc) if you really probe the beliefs of people you know who vote in support of the Left you’ll often find they don’t hate America and have pretty “bourgeois” values in how they live their lives. What they often have are very inconsistent and not deeply thought through views on issues and probably most importantly they view anything labeled “conservative”, “right” or “Republican” as toxic branding regardless of how much you might get them to admit they agree with you on some specific issues.
When you say “we” do you mean Tulsa County, Oklahoma? I’m guessing not. The question illustrates the political divide in the U.S. There is an huge political divide, which is growing, between the “red” and “blue” sections of the country.
Recently, Oral Roberts University held a large “Stand with Israel” rally at their Tulsa campus. It was widely attended with appearances by both OK senators. Now, jews in Oklahoma are as about as rare as one-eyed woodpeckers, so this was not a case of political pandering to an ethnic group,
Rather, it is an indicator, a sign of our division. Could a rally like this have been held in NYC or LA?
Smith and most people in general have Obama wrong. One cannot view anything about him without understanding that he has a malignant Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Love small America? Maybe, but someone with his affliction truly loves one thing only, themselves. Nothing but nothing comes close including kids, ideology, or your most loyal supporters. The primary function of everything is to be used as a tool to fuel adoration. A useful tool is appreciated. America is Obama’s useful tool.
Now combine a mental disorder with being anti-Imperialist, anti-capitalist, anti-Christian, anti-Semite, pro Islam, anti-gun, and pretty much anti-whatever Jay likes then you get Obama.
Americans would like to sit back and say “Enough”, and take a breather. We are called on for help throughout the world, are the first to respond, and we give it freely – we send troops, rescue teams, doctors, medicine, food, etc. It’s not free – we pay for all of it with taxes. We rarely say no to someone asking for help.
We would love a smaller America as in smaller gov., less bureaucracy, but the smaller America in the article speaks of taking a back seat to helping when asked, and being a champion for freedom. We have learned that some countries and ideologies are incompatible with our principals of freedom and liberty for all – not America’s version, but universally-speaking. We may not all agree on a particular subject, but believe others have a right to express their view. We believe in an idea bigger than ourselves. In contrast, Islam does not believe in equal rights for all, especially women, gays, or religious freedom. Yet we allow their freedom to worship, and spout hate speech on our soil.
We cannot rationalize with insanity, Bin Laden did not win anything, nor will any society that espouses those radical views. Obama’s ideas seem confusing to many because sometimes they are incompatible with the Constitution, the checks and balances, as well as our Founding Fathers’ principals that established who we are. We are not Europe and never will be. Study the papers of Lincoln, Washington, Benjamin Franklin, the authors of our foundation explain why America works.
There are those who have sat in a hut, studied the Qua-ran, and are in public office. Allen West, for example:
Removing bits of freedom here and there, silencing the majority for the minority, not asking immigrants to assimilate and integrate while retaining their identity are all mistakes that erode our country’s foundations. Our ancestors did it and retained who they are. Sorry for rambling but I found those articles frustrating.
Bin Laden won in the short term in regards to his holy war to mess with infidels but he got holes in him. Good riddance.
This century will see the death of tens or hundreds of millions of Muslims from war, disease, famine and other horsemen. When the civilized world ( and a tired America) elects to avoid the barbarous religious countries because of their many sins, bin Laden shall lose.
Gee, if all they wanted was a candidate without any cajones, the Republicans have nominated a bunch of them.
I still love my country, but I hate what it’s becoming. At some point the left will change it enough that what I loved will be dead anyway. Hopefully, I’ll get there first.
I really never imagined being able to understand that thought, but I suppose I do.
We all need to leave memoirs about how great it used to be.
I wish I could agree with you Claire, but I think Michelle Obama let the cat out of the bag when she blurted out that for the first time in her adult life she was proud of America. I have known leftists for many years and they usually are not just posing as transgressive when they say they truly believe America is the evil empire and focus of evil in the world, crushing any third world attempt at experimenting with a better society. I believe this is the President’s default mindset, it’s why he entrusted the moral instruction of his daughters to Jeremiah Wright for eight years and donated tens of thousands of dollars to his ministry. It’s why he bends over backwards and bangs his head on the floor between his ankles trying to find common ground with Iran and it’s “right” to it’s own nukes, it’s why he sold out any possibility of salvaging a decent outcome in Iraq. The novelty of electing a Black President blinded the American people to the fact that the only other two men as far left as him with a plausible shot at national office in modern times were Henry Wallace and possibly George McGovern. He now believes he has a free hand until January 2017 to undo some of the damage America has done around the world.
“a religion that was also a political system”….there’s an old Heinlein SF story in which the US is conquered by a coalition of Asian powers. The occupiers, although brutal, think it wise to allow the subject peoples their religions, however bizarre these may appear. An American resistance movement is created, using a “religion” as a cover.
Yeah. I remember it well, “Sixth Column”. And NO way it would get published today, but I did enjoy it as a kid and later on too.
The story of the Middle East – irony, huh? Or do you think Heinlein was writing a prescient allegory?
The story is about a resistance movement in the US after invasion that uses the cover of a religion (taking advantage of those superstitious asian invaders) for a new advanced scientific breakthrough that gives them seemingly magical powers because the effects are not detectable through the old electromagnetic spectrum, and can be manipulated to have varying effects on different “races” of humans.
I don’t think our head hacking adversaries are capable of any advanced scientific breakthroughs…..
Obama loves the small codependent America that chooses to rely upon government assistance. In other words, he truly loves the power with which that enables him. His kids will probably be receiving their allowances until they’re middle-aged.
Claire,
I find none of these analyses ‘on point’. In each case they are looking for an easy out for those who have invested too much of their ego in Obama’s foreign policy.
First Lee Smith. Recognizing our limitations is not the same as using a Marxist-Leninist attack on Free Enterprise-Democracy to vilify everything America does and stands for. Obama’s people have used pure Marxist slogans like they hadn’t gone out of style. Jay Carney and Obama himself used the phrase ‘on the wrong side of history’, a pure piece of Marxist rhetoric, over and over again. It is one thing to point out the limitations of American power, it is another to live in a fools world about the very real motivations of Marxists. This lesson was taught to me by the Killing Fields of Cambodia. Any illusion that I still possessed about the fundamentally genocidal nature of Marxism was annihilated. Obama and his people want much more than just a small America. They want to believe that the useless, unproductive, and ultimately murderous system that is socialism can be some sort of alternative. This isn’t a point of view but sickness.
Second Hanin Ghadar. Mr. Ghadar is hallucinating. There are no liberal Muslims in anything like significant numbers in the Middle East. What is there is either Authoritarian Secularists or Jihadists. Benazir Bhutto was the fantasy popular candidate of Mr. Ghadar’s fantasy liberal Muslims. As I watched her return to Pakistan I knew exactly what was coming. Like watching a train wreck in slow motion. She herself tied the hands of the Authoritarian Secularists and walked straight into the arms of Jihadist misogynist murderers. This is not like an American political game that can be finessed by fancy progressive footwork. If you make a miscalculation on this scale you wind up dead.
Third Paul Berman. Berman tries to back date my concept of Jihad as the enemy. He imagines that choosing to fight ‘terrorism’ or ‘islamism’ is just the same as choosing to make war on Jihad. Interchangable words with the same policy outcome. This is not the case. War on terror or war on islamism mean nothing to Muslims. The first term is so vague as to leave them clueless and the second is frightening to them making them suspect that you really are a modern day crusader. Making war on Jihad makes complete sense to them. It is exactly what the vast majority of Middle East Muslims would like to do. No one wishes to live in endless fear with everything they’ve ever worked for destroyed. A war on Jihad is a war that Muslims in the Middle East will participate willingly themselves. They know who to kill from the start. They won’t need the DIA to come in and explain who the enemy is. All we need to do is be willing to go to the surge if that is the only governmental tactic that will work. Better a successful surge government than a failed Nation building government.
Fourth David Samuels. Imagining that Bin Laden and other Jihadist psychotic suicidal-genocidal murderers are geniuses is the ultimate wrong conclusion to come to. This is equivalent to those to this day who think Hitler was a genius. He was a deranged killer.
The question to ask is not about deranged killers and their supposed genius but how it is that Western Society let them get as far as they did before their complete demise. (The complete demise of Jihadism would require making war directly on it. What we have failed to do so far.)
The answer lies in the 20th century’s complete seduction by Science and Secularity. Instead of the West staying with it’s great history of enlightened faith it chose to imagine that faith was unimportant and that science was uber allas. This resulted in the complete undermining of morality. Fascism is very much the product of this. Hitler said so in Mein Kampf. The Jews invented Gd and Morality. Believing like Nietzsche that this was a problem to be solved proceeded to attempt to exterminate the Jews and conquer and enslave the World. Only when we came to our senses and rejected the idiocy of Neville Chamberlain were we able to directly attack and defeat the problem.
Our present problem with Islam is still related to this seduction by Science and Secularity. Remember the West has a history of enlightened faith. However, the full blossoming of this enlightenment did not occur until the defeat of a Jihadist Islam. Only at the end of the 17th century could Europe feel secure against the threat of conquest by Jihad. Then Europe moved forward into the Enlightenment. Forgetting all of this history, modern Secularity believed itself to be all powerful. Its magical faithless psychobabble secular religion could overcome anything. Just give Obama and his mind bending minyans enough money and time and media and control and they’d solve all the problems. They solve fantasy problems in a fantasy world.
Jihad must be faced again as it was in the 17th century and beaten. That is the solution. Genius is in Freedom.
Regards,
Jim
Bill Ayres, Obama’s old comrade and mentor, has helped transform primary and secondary education in the USA.
Hmm. Seems to be Obama is comfortable with Big America at home but not abroad. And many conservstives just the opposite.
I think the most reassuring part of Berman’s article is where he talks about Tunisia. This is because I disagree with him, but it wasn’t until that point in the article that I knew that he wasn’t arguing in good faith. In order to describe Tunisia’s part in everything going to heck, he discusses the 2011 elections, but he is writing in 2015 and he doesn’t note that the things he finds worth discussing were reversed in 2014.
Bin Laden didn’t win. Bin Laden wanted an Islamic revolution in Saudi like the one that radicalized Iran. He wanted Israel gone. He wanted to make a difference in Yugoslavia. He wanted to remove the Western presence from the Middle East. He wanted to reduce the presence of Shia.
He’s been successful at killing people, but that wasn’t so much his aim. ISIS does aim to maximize its bloodshed, but AQ was always about maximizing publicity, about using murder as a means rather than an end.
The Saudi government is stronger than it has been in decades, although there may be a succession crisis ahead. It’s gradually democratizing and has managed to weather some pretty terrifying oil price shocks.
Israel’s in good shape with, among other benefits, an impressively warmed relationship with Saudi over the period of AQ’s growth. Partly because of AQ. Also, the chief funder of anti-Israeli violence and the chief radicalizer of Islam, Saddam, is history.
Yugoslavia turned out not to want or need his help.
There’s a whole heck of a lot of Westerners in the Middle East.
The Shia have not just not been beaten back, but have dramatically increased their territory.
Somalia, which looked like a real hope for an Arab base has seen its jihadi territory shrivel. Afghanistan, likewise, is much less hospitable than it was to him. Indeed, pretty much the whole of the Middle East has soured.
He’d have liked ISIS doing well, but ISIS’ gains are obviously not durable. Libya may make him look fondly up from his grave, but Libya was pretty good to him in 1996, too. It’s not clear how Syria’s going to work out, but I doubt he’d be happy about the massive loss of Sunni life and the very limited upside for them.
I suspect he’d have been strongly opposed to his execution.
The only good news for the late Bin Laden is that Iran may now get a bomb and cripple Israel, the US, or both, and I don’t really think Osama can really be fairly credited with much influence on that.
In general, it’s not helpful when working out how the other side feel to assume that this is literally a zero sum game in which everything that mades us feel sad makes the other side equivalently happy.
Unfortunately, that’s the way it is and is going to be.
I’m compelled to respond to the last of these outtakes first (darn you, Ricochet! I’m trying to have a life here!).
It is simply inaccurate and unjust to say that Bush used a “heavy-handed” occupation in Iraq. There was a moment — too easily forgotten — of purple fingered hope in Iraq. Was it too soon, too naive given the history and character of the Iraqis? That’s debatable.
Certainly Bush’s team made a number of significant mistakes (allowing WMD to be made out as the prime motivating factor for the war was one of the biggest). But, the necessity and effectiveness of The Surge showed that maybe, if anything, the US wasn’t heavy-handed enough.
I also dispute that Barack Obama is “American” in any meaningful sense (not in the birther sense). He is indistinguishable from any leftist found in an internet cafe in Munich, Paris, or Madrid. He has turned the whole Democrat Party toward its true north of democratic socialism. Listen carefully to the lament of Obama and the Democrats, and it always boils down to “why can’t America be more like Europe?”
And now we are. Transformation well on its way toward completion. We’re not going to presume to impose ourselves and our values on the rest of the world. They’re not worthy of imposition. It’s not the American Empire the world is finally free from. It’s the Pax Americana.
Does anyone doubt that the Middle East would look entirely different today if McCain or Romney had won their respective elections?
I don’t think bin Laden was particularly strategic in his assessment of America. What he understood that westerners have forgotten is that people who believe in something have staying power over a people who don’t believe in anything. He understood how brittle the West was becoming in its secular leftism. America has resisted secularism and leftism until now… until Barack Obama. Now watch the world burn.
In general, it’s not helpful when working out how the other side feel to assume that this is literally a zero sum game in which everything that mades us feel sad makes the other side equivalently happy.
As always—very helpful, James. I also wonder whether Americans to easily assume that it’s always about us—that everyone else on the planet isn’t just aware of us (hard to be unaware, really) but takes its relationship with the U.S. as its primary, even sole, organizing principle, leaving aside their own histories, conflicts and preoccupations?
I also dispute that Barack Obama is “American” in any meaningful sense (not in the birther sense). He is indistinguishable from any leftist found in an internet cafe in Munich, Paris, or Madrid. He has turned the whole Democrat Party toward its true north of democratic socialism. Listen carefully to the lament of Obama and the Democrats, and it always boils down to “why can’t America be more like Europe?”
With allowance made for exaggeration, I think this is an American lament—and has been, on and off, throughout our history.
And this—“ the promise that America extends to the world, regardless of color or creed—you’re welcome here, dream big, you can make it, our arms are open, we’ll help you”—is recognizable to me as an American idea too, one that many bona fide Americans identify with. (Perhaps half the country, even?)
I disagree. It was an American Tory lament, not an American one. America was quite literally about separating from the ways of Old Europe.
It’s depressing I find myself speaking in past tense.
I disagree back, Western C! :-)
I disagree partly because I’d been thinking about my grandmother (apropos of another thread). My grandmother was what they used to call a “socialite,” from what she and her ilk liked to call “Old Money.” In America “old” means maybe fifty years old, but they liked to pretend it went back centuries…like in Europe.
As a young woman, my grandmother was sent not to Michigan or California, but to Europe to study European culture because that’s where real “culture” was. She went to Paris to see the Louvre and to perfect her French, so that she and her peers could better ape European Dukes and Duchesses. (Fortunately for all concerned, they weren’t really European aristocrats, merely rich Americans—and once American money is gone, it is gone.)
It’s only been, really, since the Second World War that Americans started exporting more culture than it imported—art, music, cuisine, medicine, science, theater, philosophy, religion, literature —it all used to be considered better over there.
Moreover, when I went to Denmark in the company of my former Kennedy-Democrat turned right-of-center Republican dad, we admitted to one another that it was kind of nice to go all over a country and never see a single poor person. Especially nice to never see a poor child. Since more Americans than ever are traveling abroad, more Americans have first-hand knowledge of other free and prosperous democracies and the people who dwell therein: it doesn’t look that bad.
It’s not and never has been unintelligent or unpatriotic to consider whether, in the drive to make America even better (which every politician presumably wants to do: very few seem to build campaigns around slogans like “We’re Good Enough!” and “Don’t Change A Thing!”) one might want to look around and see how the citizens of other democracies are choosing to arrange their affairs. That doesn’t mean we have to agree, it just means that there’s nothing inherently un-American or un-patriotic about the idea that we could steal some good ideas from our friends across the pond.
I doubt it. Or at least I am not convinced it would look entirely different. And, if it was entirely different would it be measurably better? It is interesting to speculate whether if McCain or Romney were President instead of George W Bush would the approach to the invasion of Iraq, occupation planning and recognition that we faced an insurgency have played out in a different way but overall I think we can easily overestimate our ability to control the world in a way to our liking.
Let me turn the conversation back to “Does Obama hate America?” This puts me in mind of the great Christian formulation: Hate the sin, love the sinner. The problem is no “sinner” feels like you love him/her when you hate what he/she is doing.
So Obama does not hate “America”, only what America “does”. Feel better?
The problem with what you write, Kate, from my perspective is the equating of “poor” with “bad”. We have today numerous ghettos, but they are much the construct of government. Look around here and you find numerous examples of people who grew up “poor” but just didn’t realize it was an impediment.
As for our late arrival onto the “culture” scene, much of that was because we were busy creating things while the European fops were busy playing. It accounts not only for the arrogance of modern-day Europeans but for the relative positions of us vs them.
I see, Obama is Gladstone. Sure. Smaller is better. Guiliani’s claim that he doesn’t love America is absurd. Obama wants to make it better, like all on the left. We pigheaded conservatives need to change our perspective on the man. Look to the good he’s bringing about with Obamacare. Look at it from the point of view of those countries we’ve treated inconsistantly over the years.
“God damn America!” Where did I hear that? Lee Smith has endowed Obama with a fictional view of America. Guiliani saw through it. Most of us do as well. Rudy could have softened it up some, but he would have been hammered no matter what. You can’t challenge the president’s patriotism. Yes, you can and should. The list of unpatriotic, unconstitutional policies belie the notion he loves his country. Why? Look to Race, not Smaller America. Start where you want, his history revolves around race. From Black Liberation Theology to Travon Martin to Ferguson and back again and all the in-betweens it’s “Hands Up Don’t Shoot.” Judge him by his friends: Holder’s DOJ, Sharpton, et. al. What do you think the legislators in the Congressional Black Caucus talk about? Basketball? Maybe.
Why the element of surprise that a black man growing up in the U.S. might harbor some resentment considering the history of discrimination? Any beat cop could educate you on the depth of race consciousness amongst African Americans. Obama is no different. In fact he’s half black which, in my opinion, makes him black and a half, taking into consideration a factor of overcompensation. He is CEO of the Race Industry in this country. He, along with his pals, exploit these tensions. Love of country, right? Tough love!
The core value is race; not Netanyahu or all the other issues any president deals with. Smith is really no better an analyst of motivation than those critics of Obama who lay his conduct in office to arrogance or incompetence. It’s a cover for their fear of confronting the heart of his worldview. He’s not incompetent and he’s not a narcissist. He’s very conscientious at what he view his job to be. Make a smaller white American demographic by opening up the border according to Mark Levin. Or, redistribution of wealth, code for reparations for slavery. Race is the driver. Of course, in Obama’s case you can layer in colonialism, Islam, and communism. Check out D’Sousa, Stanley Kurtz or Daniel Pipes, among other serious thinkers for more on these influences.
Another possible definition of “Small” is to weaken.
The problem with what you write, Kate, from my perspective is the equating of “poor” with “bad”. We have today numerous ghettos, but they are much the construct of government. Look around here and you find numerous examples of people who grew up “poor” but just didn’t realize it was an impediment.
I agree— In fact, I’m really hoping that the next GOP candidate has some really good, interesting, creative plans to address exactly this—I’m not saying I agree with Obama or his voters/supporters, I’m just saying that they don’t seem evil or crazy to me.
Incidentally, in my grandmother’s day, plenty of Europeans grew up “poor,” too. When my other grandparents were growing up in Denmark, it was a relatively poor country. It is now a rich country. Its people enjoy a very high standard of living.
As for our late arrival onto the “culture” scene, much of that was because we were busy creating things while the European fops were busy playing.
Well, at the time I’m talking about, the European fops had just come off of one war and were on their way to fighting another. And still, somehow, managing to produce an awful lot of seriously good music, art, theology, philosophy….
Why the element of surprise that a black man growing up in the U.S. might harbor some resentment considering the history of discrimination? Any beat cop could educate you on the depth of race consciousness amongst African Americans. Obama is no different.
See, this strikes me as the mirror-image of what all my friends and acquaintances on the left used to say about Bush II: that he is a pure product of his elitist upbringing, that he’s just an entitled white frat boy who is only interested in furthering the agenda and lining the pockets of his cronies, and how can you expect anything else from him, given that his entire life has been spent in a bubble of of cosseted privilege? Ask the beat cops in Kennebunkport about the depth of class consciousness amongst the wealthy white alcoholic summer people!